Jesus Unbound

By Richard Malmed

This is a historical novel of the life of Jesus, which combines a reconciliation of the gospels, Jewish law, Roman law, forensic reasoning, and research on the nature of Roman counterintelligence. It follows Jesus from his early years to his crucifixion and disappearance from the tomb and includes a final

• Language: English
• Publisher: Authors' Tranquility Press
• Release date: Jan 23, 2022
• ISBN: 9781957208879

Richard Malmed

Richard Malmed, retired after fifty years of practicing law, pursues his first love as a writer since he was an Honors English Major at Yale. Author of eight books, he writes historical fiction and lawyer’s adventure novels. To learn more, please visit richardmalmed.com

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

Early Pilgrimage to Jerusalem

Members of the family slowly began to awake and stir. The girls had begun to stretch and whine. They came out of the tent and washed their faces in the water from the bucket. Soon Mary, Joseph, James, the younger boys, Cephas and his wife Yael and their babies, everyone, stretched and groaned. Mary, Yael and the older girls were cutting figs and brewing some herbal tea. Mounds of hummus and strips of pita were spread on the wagon lid for all to eat. Everyone sat or squatted around the fire, rubbing their eyes and stretching again. It was just after dawn, and the desert floor was chilly. The girls hugged and shivered. The men and boys loaded the wagon and the donkeys.

After the meal, the women went to pack up the loose items in the saddlebags as the men took down the tents. All the other families in the caravan were doing the same. It was still dangerous territory. Most of the families had come from the northern Galilee and had been escorted by some very dangerous-looking men riding horses—they were armed to the teeth, although the men had more weapons than teeth. Most wore rags around their faces to cover old scars, and avoid the sand in the winds. This was the beginning of the second day of the trip which took them through the rough and wild lower Galilee and past the Samaritan territory where they were not welcome. When all the families were packed and ready to move, the leader of the men gave the command and the line began to wind down the rough roadway.

Jesus and James were considered to be men of the family because they had already read from the torah as part of their Bar Mitzvah initiations and could walk along the wagon where their mother Mary rode with the girls. Joseph had gotten quite old and sick by this time, but insisted on filling his role as the head of the family and driving the ox cart. The other boys were permitted to walk with Jesus and James some of the time and the rest rode in the cart with their sisters and the other women.

Jesus had begun early in the trip to pepper his father with questions about the trip. He had been educated by the local Pharisee priests who were opposed to sacrifice, and yet the family was going to the Temple for the express purpose of offering animals in sacrifice under the auspices of the Sadducee priests who controlled the temple and conducted the sacrifices. These priests were hereditary ministers who became wealthy controlling the temple sacrifices.

But, father, what good is a dead animal to God?

It is our way. God has protected us and we must obey his commandments.

Yes, yes. I know that. But he doesn’t protect us. We are under the fist of the Romans, now, and the Assyrians before and the Babylonians before that. We are poor and must pay taxes to the Romans.

At this Mary broke in, Don’t complain about your poverty. Your father and his brother work very hard. They are tektons and so will you be. They do very well and are better off than most.

I did not mean to complain about my lot, I mean the Jewish lot. What good has our being chosen done us now?

God’s ways cannot be questioned. We might be punished because we have not been pious enough and observed his commandments.

The only ones his commandments make better are the Sadducees. They get rich on these sacrifices and do little for us.

Don’t speak ill of the Sadducees.

First, we know God told Abraham not to sacrifice Isaac. For us, that was the end of human sacrifice, which many of our neighbors do.

Yes, but I don’t get the idea. Why take a living thing and burn it to make God happy? He doesn’t eat. I don’t even know if he can smell.

Good point. Many agree with you.

I mean why take something of value and destroy it?

Alright. You made your point.

I’m just thinking now. If someone else denies themselves something, like food or a wife, or something, how does that make them better in God’s eyes?

Alright. We get it.

If I sacrifice myself, how are other people made better?

Enough, Jesus.

I’m just thinking out loud.

Jesus was getting to be like this now. Asking questions all day. Finally, Mary spoke up: Jesus, leave your father alone. Go talk to James. James eagerly looked up, now he would have Jesus to himself while Jesus thought out loud.

Rabbi Naimi does. He quotes Jeremiah who said ‘What does God want smoke for?’ Besides, God already said he didn’t want sacrifices. Didn’t he tell Abraham not to kill his son and sacrifice him to show his faith? Why would God want to have us lose something so that the fat Sadducees can have it? We should give to the poor or tithe to the church, but sacrifice a good animal up in smoke, it doesn’t make sense.

As you say, many people especially the ones who returned from Babylonia no longer sacrifice. That is something you can decide when you are the head of the family. But now, we sacrifice.

Rabbi Naimi says the Sadducees are in a league with the Romans.

Well, not exactly. They are stuck. The Sadducees have to keep the peace. They do what the Romans say but protect us from some of the bad things the Romans might do.

So the talk went on as the long line of families bumped down the gray dust of the countryside. Occasionally they would come to a well where the local clan owning the well would charge for the water drawn from it. The people would jump down and stretch their legs and groan, before climbing back for the rest of the journey.

When the clan had come to the area outlying Jerusalem, a loose line of men had assembled by the side of the road. As each family came up, the men would jostle for position and appeal to the head of the family to rent his campsite for the Passover holiday. Each would shout out the benefits of his side—water nearby, level ground, so many steps to the Temple, shade trees and the area. The head of the family would haggle with the men for the best price and then be lead off to the campsite. Joseph had selected a site he was familiar with west of the city—no water, no trees, but an hour’s walk to the Temple. When they arrived, the family members all went about their duties to set up camp, start the fire, bed down the donkeys, and feed the children. Soon the sun began to set and the cool desert wind began to bring in some dust. The families lined up with their dishes around the bubbling pots of lentil soup and stew. Jesus and the older boys went off to their own circle and ate by themselves. They could not wait for the next morning.

At dawn, the camp began to stir again. Everyone had duties and went about them without hesitation or fuss. The breakfast figs and mare’s milk were assembled on the wagons by the women. Everyone drifted over to the cooking area to warm up and eat the breakfast.

By the time they had finished, a line had already assembled leading down the road toward the city. Normally a population of 25,000 had now swollen to 250,000. People from all directions were swarming from their camps down the road.

First on the agenda would be the markets where the women would buy provisions for the weekend. The older boys went with them to carry the parcels home. The market today stretched for the entire length of the main street and filled many of the side streets as well. Among the food stalls, merchants sat with piles of goods available for the pilgrims. Spices, new robes, sandals, knives, jewelry, cosmetics, furs, scrolls—a dizzying display of goods—at each stall, the vendor would show his wares and attempt conversation with the passersby to lure them to his stall. The next few days for these vendors would decide whether it was a good year or a bad year. This was the best time to make money; by Monday, it would be over.

The pilgrims were jammed into narrow lanes as they squeezed through the crowds past each booth. It was exhausting. It was also easy to lose a child or two in the masses, so the cries back and forth between the women and their offspring mingled with the vendors hawking their wares.

Towards the afternoon, the men began to form the lines leading to the Court of the Temple where they could buy the animals to sacrifice. Jews and the Canaanites for miles around had such festivals where the priests would sacrifice animals to the respective deities. The Jews had followed the ceremonies of their neighbors for centuries and it was an endemic practice in every country on their particular feast days.

The men with fat purses would enter the battery of money changing tables. The changers had purchased their spots from the Temple priests and had piles of shekels in neat stacks in front of them. Today was their day to make their money for the year. Because the coins used in the empire often came from Rome and bore the image of Caesar, the coins, although necessary for commerce, were nonetheless idolatrous. They had the stamped profile of a ruler who insisted he be worshipped as a god. The coin was an idol by itself. The Temple authorities would not accept these pieces of moving idolatry and insisted on dealing in shekels—the special coinage of Jerusalem which bore images of mostly fruit or vines, but no humans. The exchange for the pilgrims was a costly but necessary transaction for the Passover sacrifice. Joseph and Cephas made their way through the lines around the money changers booths and made the exchange enough for a fine animal.

Further on, in the Court of Gentiles, there were huge pens of animals on display as the men passed by. The place stank. Thousands of calves, lambs, doves, chickens were bleating, squealing, chirping, squawking, groaning and urinating and defecating at every turn. Vendors stood before their pens shouting out their wares and prices. Layers of excrement covered the entire court from the days of loading the animals from the carts to the pens in the Temple. In front of each pen, pilgrims stood with their purses in hand haggling with the merchants over the weight and quality of the animals.

These animals were of the highest and purest quality and grown locally. The pilgrims could never afford to herd their own animals the long distance to Jerusalem, so they had to buy at exorbitant prices the local animals.

When Joseph, Cephas and the boys had picked out a decent lamb, he led it off on a string to the next line—those waiting to have the priest sacrifice the animal. After an hour or so, they had made their way to the front of the line. The priests’ assistants took the animal and the fee for the sacrifice. Twelve animals at a time were lead to individual stone headrests. The priests walked down a long line of animals slitting the throat of each. The animals were permitted to drop and bleed into gutters until they had bled out and were ready for the fire.

As each animal bled into a small pool, a priest would walk by and dip a cloth wrapped around a pole in the blood and daub the blood on the altar behind him. Two assistants would then walk down the line and grab each animal carcass and lift it onto a grate where a large fire was burning. As the animals began to sizzle and burn, the pilgrims were lead out of the room so that twelve more sets of pilgrims and their animals were ushered into the sacrifice area.

As Jesus and James descended the stairs from the sacrifice behind Joseph and Cephas, Jesus couldn’t contain himself. Father, is this the way they always do this?

Why, yes.

But, I mean, the priests don’t even look at you. You put your own money in the pot, they take your animal and they never say anything. They don’t even look at you. They just mumble the prayers. And then we go.

What did you expect?

Well, if this is a holy event…I mean it has no dignity, no character…It’s just a…I mean we slaughter our animals with more care.

But you knew them. You named them.

These men are priests. They’re supposed to be more…spiritual.

Today, there are 250,000 people all wanting animals sacrificed. What did you expect? This is their busiest day of the year.

And their most profitable. I could hardly hear the prayers. They were just mumbling. Does God really hear them, is this really for him? Why does he want this?

Jesus, we’ve always done this. For hundreds of years.

Does God really want us to kill an animal and smell its smoke? I think it’s a colossal waste.

You’re entitled to your opinion, but I think you’ve been listening too much to these Pharisees.

Jesus sunk into one of his deep contemplation modes on the way back to the camp. James knew not to disturb him when he was like this. Something was rumbling around in that head.

After the three days in Jerusalem, and three nights in a campsite the family had rented from a local landowner, the family started to pack up to leave. The women and girls bustled among the kitchen utensils, while the men rolled the tent and packed the saddlebags and gear. One of the men to ride along with the caravan rode up and began to give instructions to Joseph on where the return caravan would assemble. By midmorning, everyone had been fed and the ox cart was packed. It was time to place the saddlebags on the donkeys. Suddenly, Mary yelled at James and the other boys.

Jesus, where is Jesus? Is he lost?

James, of course, knew where Jesus was. He went down to the grove of trees near the Temple to debate with the men.

Mary turned to Joseph. I’ll have to go get him. Come, James, show me where. The two hustled down the road to the Temple.

After they entered the Susa gate, and went forward towards the Antonia Palace, the walls of the Temple became visible.

There were various scholars sitting in circles conducting sermons and lecturing on learned subjects. Normally, there would be a charge for attending put in a plate at the master’s feet. However, there was a particularly large crowd standing around a group of the men. As Mary and James pressed through the crowd, they could see Jesus standing in front of the master and, as was his custom, peppering him with questions. Occasionally, the rest of the men chuckled as Jesus asked the master a particularly hard question.

Mary came up and grabbed Jesus by the arm. Jesus, we are leaving today, why did you wander off?

The crowd began to laugh at this smart young man being disciplined by his mother. Oh, mother. Not now. Can’t I stay a little longer?

No. We’re all packed and it’s time to leave.

One of the older men spoke up. Madam, this boy has a gift, you must send him for more education.

Mary said, His father is a tekton, she said with some pride. He works in Sepphoris and this boy will be a very good one, too.

The rest of the men began to mumble. Madam, that would be a waste, he would make a fine scholar or a rabbi.

Well, we haven’t time for that now. Mary dragged Jesus by the arm back to the family’s campsite. He has to earn a living.

Sepphoris

Joseph and his work crew had been denied access to entry into Sepphoris by Roman soldiers. Their town of Nazareth was just a few miles south, so Joseph had more than a few carpentry and masonry jobs still pending. Before Joseph turned to go back to Nazareth, he chatted with the soldiers. It seems that some rebel force of zealots had taken control of large parts of Sepphoris and the legions from Syria were coming down to turn them out. All Jewish reinforcements and supplies were now barred from entry into Sepphoris. Joseph’s men and their donkeys laden with tools and lumber were thoroughly checked by the soldiers and sent home again. Joseph and his helpers plodded along the Roman road before branching off on the dirt track to Nazareth. The day was warm by now in mid-morning and the men trudged along slowly. Without work, the village of Nazareth would suffer and have to dip into their meager reserves of grain and coins. As they came into the village, the women came out of their huts followed by a gaggle of children clutching their mother’s shifts.

Joseph, what’s happened? Mary asked. Mary, as the wife of Joseph, the chief tekton was the leader of the women in the village. She was carrying a baby swaddled against the heat while her two sons, Jesus and James stood behind her.

It seems there’s been a revolt in Sepphoris and the Romans have closed all entrances until their legions put it down. So, there’s no work for a while.

Nazareth was a small collection of huts surrounding a central square. It had been quite prosperous while the Sepphoris markets were open and work for a tekton was in demand. The townspeople lived communally and were in some way related. There was a small synagogue off the square. No work meant hardship at least for some time. There were vegetable patches here and there, as well as some chickens and goats. The business of a tekton – building and